As cryptocurrency thefts are becoming more frequent and big news for blockchain naysayers, it is important to point out that there are companies out there trying to prevent these issues. The Moscow-based anti-virus firm, Kaspersky Lab, has recently reported preventing 100,000 crypto thefts in 2018 alone.

Kaspersky Lab is a well-known anti-virus company that has been leading the cybersecurity industry for many years. In 2018, they fought off a reported 100,000 approaches used by cybercriminals to steal cryptocurrencies. Their prevention of cryptocurrency thefts is leading experts to praise the company for their vigilance.

Tackling cryptocurrency thefts in 2018Bearing in mind that the 100,000 prevented attempts have taken place in the first few months of 2018 alone should give you an idea of the security issues that continue to blight the crypto industry. This groundbreaking Russian company recently reported that analyzing the main patterns and trends related to the thefts has helped them to understand the mentality of hackers and to help tackle cryptocurrency thefts, helping users to avoid dodgy and fake exchanges, ICOs and wallets.

Kaspersky went on to detail how cybercriminals have been finding loopholes to exploit the hype in the marketplace and have mainly targeted inexperienced users and novice traders. As part of the prevention, Kaspersky talked about how they tracked over 1,000 ethereum wallets where users were conned out of over 21,000 ether. That total equated to approximately USD 10 million, which is a massive number. You also have to take into consideration that this figure does not include funds that were stolen by cybercriminals directly from the online wallets of victims.

Protecting crypto users onlineOne of the primary targets for cybercriminals and hackers are Initial Coin Offering (ICO) investors. Kaspersky has pointed out that it is relatively easy for hackers to obtain personal data such as email addresses of the potential investors in certain projects. The cryptocurrency thefts are in the main part very focused from criminals who know how to target the weaknesses of systems.

Once the cybercriminals have the personal info they need, they use fake letters from a ‘startup team’ in the pre-ICO launch phase of the program. The letters are used to talk investors into moving their digital funds to the wallet addresses of the criminals, which is basically another arm of phishing.

Another avenue utilized by fraudsters is to create fake ICOs and projects through social media platforms, through email campaigns and even on search engines such as Google. Some of the frauds in this modern age know no bounds. A recent report from Kaspersky Lab noted that fraudulent schemes are based on the old tried and tested methods of social engineering. They are created to exploit human nature and to take advantage of the ‘human factor’.

As Kaspersky Lab continues to move forward in its quest to eradicate cryptocurrency thefts, it is important that we, as crypto users, use a modicum of common sense and to not put ourselves in the position to be exploited or conned.